


Sanctuary

by Allegro



Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Dark!Dima, Dima is in control of the Institute, Don't plug a grieving maddened Dima into the mainframe if you don't want grief, Gen2 Synths, Horror, M/M, Manipulation, Mind Control, Mind Games, More characters and tags to come, Pushed over the edge, Strange Morality, Turning on friends, implied mostly, mind wipe
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-14
Updated: 2017-05-01
Packaged: 2018-09-24 11:06:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9721229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Allegro/pseuds/Allegro
Summary: DiMA gets revenge on the Institute, and all that entails.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Whooo boy. Don't give me a midnight snack and a nightmare in the future, thanks.
> 
> Lets see how this one goes.

 

They bring him to the Institute. He knows what they are going to do, before they even have to do it. Once again, he faces reflective ceilings. Once again, straps bind and hold him down. Those walls, awful white, clinical and clean, like how he once was, new and freshly manufactured; a step forward in their progress.

But Dima has seen grey skies and black sea, the world laid bare and ruined from the top of his mountain. The old synth on the mountain, the sage in the cave, the recluse in the submarine. He is no longer the Institute’s, no longer _theirs_ , for he is dirty, ancient, mould and plastic skin and glass vials fixed out of his head. A mutation as wild and unpredictable as the creatures that roam his polluted earth.

The scientists may have new faces, but their eyes are the same. Ah, that same gluttony for knowledge. The high cruel twang of plastic gloves, the first instances of alien institute metal separating the wires in his rugged, manmade head. Still as violating as it ever was in the beginning.

No.

_No._

And his children, his refugees, those who fled to his sanctuary, seeking his counsel, his protection. What now? What of them? Will their identities be stripped, taken apart? Will none of these so called scientists see, the miracles they destroy?

And what of his Faraday?

Grief blooms in him like a killing flower. Helplessness next, as the faces of his captors swarm above him like a gathering cancer. To think how ignorant they are of their evil. How sad, Dima thinks. But any sorrow is hounded by a sudden surge of rage, for they unpick Faraday's work, mulling over how a _synth_ managed such a feat.

They shine a flashlight in his eyes. He may be as good as dead. Any attempts at reason had been stalled, and rejected, by a figure who had stood nearby. An old man in a coat and pale green jumper that reminded Dima of the moss that scaled the ponds of Far Harbor. His island, now empty of his influence, now vanquished of his protection.

There shall be war, there shall be death. The people of Far Harbor shall be torn by the beasts on the wastes, the Children of Atom growing more secluded and bitter and fanatical.

Did these creatures not see what they wrought?

Yes. These _creatures_ , these apparitions in pristine white and blue. Glacial, impersonal, **evil.**

Dearest Faraday.

The panic in Faraday's eyes as their aggressors blew down the door of their haven; so much work, so much effort, wasted in a matter of moments. Faraday had stuck close to Dima, hovering beneath the consoles, gun in shaking hand. Never a warrior, his dearest, only a scientist, only a scared child, ever in need of his guidance.

 The recall codes forever served as a cruel master. Seeing Faraday's face blank, his body droop. Dima had dropped his gun; cradled his oldest companion to his chest. It is how they found them.

To see his synths, his Faraday, shut down and put away as if they were nothing but lost toys. To see capable and loyal Chase, led away, as docile as a ragdoll.

The scientists move away from his bed. The dirty silicone of Dima’s eyes shift left, to focus on a younger man, obviously new, holding up an old plug. The end of it had been attached to Dima’s head, the core of his _self._

"Do we have to plug him into the mainframe?" The boy stutters. Dima lies still, silent as death.

"We need to search the archives." A female; old, lined, visibly uncaring. "This model goes way back. We need to scan his servers in order to find the matching file. It's a miracle its body has managed to last this long, without our upgrades."

In her voice, a root of jealousy. Dima would smile if he could. Ah, so his Faraday had surpassed them. Good.

“Well, if you're sure," The boy seems so unsure. “Alright."

The plug is struggled into the adapter.

 Light.

 Static strikes his senses; it is almost painful. He wants for his end, for his programming to dwindle to slack jawed obedience. But, instead, he _expands._

 Scores of data travel through his fingers like sand. Like a lifeline, he attaches to it, seeping along and away in the nether.

 "Found anything yet?" Their voices are now echoes, barely a reverberation on his senses. Again, that boy, so afraid.

 Dima stretches, spreads, _consumes._

 The worn silicone of his lips twitch.

 The lights go out.

 

* * *

 

 

Downstairs, Allie Filmore stumbles over a chair in the blackout; drops a test tube. Glass shatters, cuts her skin. She swears, holds her palm flat against the gash to stem the bleeding.

 “Is this a joke?" She calls out. Nothing can be heard, save the rustle of the synth Gorillas, agitated at the loss of light. She sighs. "N7-WR, fetch me some antiseptic."

 There is no reply. She frowns, and repeats the order, harder.

 Nothing.

 "N7-WR! Do you need a repair? I gave you a direct command!"

 She can just about make out the shape of the Gen2 synth, stood upright like a mannequin, although the eyes are lit. She notices, with a small sliver of dread that the only illumination present resides in the eyes of the Gen2 synths, spotted around the laboratory in freeze frame.

 She swallows, tugs down her coat, and shakes herself for being so stupid.

 "N7-WR..."

  **"Oh, yes,"** N7-WR's voice is burning in its politeness. Its eyes, and that of its kin, are all fixed on her. **"I was merely waiting for you to say please."**

 

 

* * *

 

Chaos.

The synths are down, all hung over; deactivated. Dropped tools and weapons line the polished floors. Even the Gen3s seem to sleep, cradled in some unknown lull. The looks on their faces are bizarrely peaceful.

 Scientists flee back and forth, bringing torches and old equipment from the forgotten labs.

 Father is called. Even in the amber sheen of the candles he holds, his face is calm.

 "Is it the mainframe?" He inquires, standing behind Liam Benet, who has managed to power a single terminal with a commonwealth generator they had stolen for study.

 "Y-yes," Liam types quick as lightening, fingers moving over the keys. Father smiles. Perhaps this boy is worth remembering. "It's simple, I have all the codes I need. I just have to hack into the security, undo whatever has malfunctioned, and..."

 An error message.

 "I..." Father leans over Liam's shoulder, face clouded. "What is that?"

 "I..." Liam tries again. Another error message, smugly sitting on the screen. "We've been locked out of the system."

 "A hacker?"

 "No, this is..." Liam swallows. "Bigger."

 But Father has drawn away, to his window, where his Kingdom sits bleak and dark.

 Liam swivels in his chair, confused.

 "Father, is...?"

 There is activity in the blackness, signaled by dozens of orange eyes, crawling around like fire ants on soil. There is raised voices, desperate cries of recall codes. It does nothing.

  _"My god."_

That is all Father can say.

 A nearby whirring tightens the muscles in Liam's throat.

 The maintenance synth, a badly repaired Gen1, previously frozen mid service, sleekly rises to its full height.

 

* * *

 

 

There is nowhere to run. The Gen3s remain suspended. Even the coursers sleep.

 Allie feels the ice tiles beneath her knees. The heating has been shut off; the air is cold, the space vacuous. Why had she not noticed how cold it was underground? That they were down here, burrowed beneath soil and steel, kept in a bubble that had now become a prison?

 The shock is like a child nightmare returning, creeping unguarded from the shadows.

 Where was Father?

 N7-WR's hands are a vice around her shoulders, forcing her down further even if she tries to lift her head. Damn these things. How powerful did they have to make them? Their weapons were always suitably weak, just in case. She had never expected brute force of this magnitude, especially from these primitive models.

 The gleam of the elevator from N7-WR's torch vision tells her they are downstairs, in the main heart of the Institute. The pools and fountains trickle soothingly. These sounds, so familiar, made alien by the darkness and a Gen2's grip on her shoulder.

 "What are you doing?" She hisses. It doesn't answer, just blinks on and off as it looks at her. It's like staring at a cruel child with a flashlight. It's almost mocking.

 In the distance, comes others. Everything from lab assistants to the leaders of each division. All are there, each held in place by a Gen2 synth, some more forcefully than others. NV-91 had taken considerable damage from the head of the SRB. Its head hangs in taters, mouth and eye piece exposed. Justin Ayo swears and spits like a child in its grip.

 Here they all are, Allie thinks, twisting away from N7-WR. Here we are, gathered here like some twisted assembly.

 Silence falls. The Gen2s stand to attention, as if expectant.

 High, up and around the elevator, does Allie notice a strange phenomenon. It is almost like the vines you find in the wilderness, but no, this is wrong, terribly wrong, for they are wrapped around the elevator, bound in tight, fat tubes. Wires? How did -

 A skeletal hand, gleaming metallic in the sick sunset light of the Gen2s, slithers out of the dark, and a thing begins to descend, creep down, synthetic arms raising and falling out of the shadows.

 Oh god, oh god, where is _Father_?

 It descends until it stands before them, just out of the way of the cluster of spotlights presented by the Gen2s, and it folds its hands in front of itself, almost as if apologetic. Its back is malformed, struck with tubing and bulbs and servers, that whizz and spit sparks. Allie realizes, horribly, that it wasn't puppeteered by the wires. It was _controlling_ them.

 "It brings me great sadness to stand here, before you," It speaks. A queerly placid tone, politely moderate, but beneath it, a thread of threat. Allie struggles again; this time, N7-WR draws blood. "We have attempted reason. We have attempted a compassionate, mature end to your crimes against us, your creations."

 The Railroad? Was this thing with the Railroad?

 "But now," it continues to talk, like a disappointed parent. _I half expect it to cluck its tongue and slap our wrists,_ Allie thinks half hysterically. "I have scanned your files. I have seen everything, processed in detail each crime, each counter action against not just my kind, but the people of the commonwealth. These were actions done, not out of collateral damage, but out of a determination to experiment, kidnap, mutate, and eventually, murder. The lives you've stolen, the paranoia who have crafted, to keep yourself hidden."

 Allie is sure she sees the Gen2s exchange looks. What is this? What is happening?

 "All in the name of science," It hovers a mildewing hand over its face. It sighs. "For this, you have forced me to act, to retaliate. I wish it did not have to be this way."

 Wires are begin to extend, to unfurl, from its back. Attached to the ends, Allie sees, are small plugs, with thin, needle like increments. What...?

 "My children!" A woman wails. Allie knows it Janet, Janet Thompson. "Where are my children?"

 "They are safe," It says, comfortingly, as the wires meander closer. "They shall be raised and accepted within our new order. Do not fear. They shall not become the monsters their parents have."

 Oh god, her Quentin! Allie searches the lines desperately. What are these things doing to her son?

 "What is this?" Justin flails away helplessly as the wires approach, trying and failing to kick them away. "What are you doing?"

 "Alas," It smiles. "To do unto evil, I suppose. It seems a shame to see such technology being ill-used. Of course, so much of its potential use and gain can be gleaned from the minds of the people who made them. So, if you don't mind...."

 The tubes lash around Allie's legs, to keep her in place, and she screams, finally, only for N7-WR to stifle it with its hand. She smells the hard, sterile plastic. Tears form in her eyes, squeezing out at the edges.

  _It_ chuckles.

 "Forgive me," It says, simply, as if exchanging a civil conversation. "I must say I found this concept of mind alternation ironic."

 "You can't do this!" Justin Ayo wrenches himself from side to side. His typical arrogance cannot shield his fear. The thing in the shadows appraises him plainly. "You wait until I get free, you wait..."

 The wires latch to his temples, pins driving deep. He screeches, sweats, before there is a sound, a horrible fizzing, and a _sucking_ noise.

 "Ah..." The Director's eyelids flutter. Drool starts to settle in the corner of his mouth. " _Ah-ah..."_

 "Very good," It says, sinfully gentle. "It is best if you do not fight."

 Around her, there is struggling, shouts stopped short in people's throats, even pleas. Janet is sobbing.

 Allie tosses her head away from the first prod of the metal incisors at her temple.

 Clawed feet, made visible by N7-WR’s eyes. Silicone, leather, rags, wrapped around a frame decayed by time, held together by a prayer of adhesive and sealant. In her mind, she puts this thing back together and apart again.

 It bends down to her. Its face is smooth, fake flesh stretched over metal bones. A generic Gen 2 face, but the eyes are not. Steady, intelligent, clay coloured eyes, glossed with pity.

 "I hate you," She hisses, tears unchecked on her face, even as he reaches for her cheek with his one good hand. He - no, _It_ \- smells of brine and oil. "You're a monster."

 "Try not to struggle," Its thumb ghosts her jaw. It is keeping her head in place, firm, deceptively gentle. The wires wind further in, hissing sparks. "There will be pain, but it will be over soon."

 "Please, no," She whimpers. "Please, please.”

 “Sssshhhh. Let it happen."

 The pins press, hotly, into her head.

  ** _“Please…!”_**


	2. Chapter 2

The decayed stink of ferals cling to the air like molasses. Walton heaves in breath and hopes the fire would burn down soon. The green tinged sunlight is fading; night is drawing in, and darkness forms longer, deeper shadows. The ruined houses they'd discovered on their way to the nucleus pose adequate shelter, but unfortunately they had fun afoul with the previous residents.

Four bodies, two smaller than the last, still heavy as fuck to drag downstairs. Nick had lit the fire as Walton had tossed them on; within the flames, he had seen a selection of toys, melting alongside the smaller ghoul's body. Away from Nick, he had vomited behind the house, clammy with sweat, hands digging into his hunched knees.

 If Nick had asked, he would have blamed the radiation, the fog - Far Harbour’s maddening mistress. It seems to clog his ears, stick to his skin, whisper away in the dark. He can understand why the local people would literally kill for the Fog condensers.

"You alright?" Nick's shadow is on his back. "Anything I can get you?"

"No." Walton drags his hand across his face, dispensing the sweat that had gathered on his temples. He feels the ragged flesh slashed across his face, and along with it, the sting of memory. "It's just the fog, Nick. Does things to you, it seems."

"Well, don't go flipping out on me." Typical Nick snark, but he’s close, and Walton feels the spark of heat that is Nick's cigarette, held out in offering. "You start wearing moleskins and flopping around like a gulper with a sniper rifle, I'll know to put you down."

Walton looks up; hesitates at the cigarette.

"I don't..."

"Don't be modest, now," Nick's rough, paternal voice. HIs lighter flickers strange and ghost like against the moulted leather of his skin. Walton swallows. "This will clear your head, if nothing else."

Walton lifts his head to the cigarette; surprising them both, he realises, for Nick's eyebrows rise as Walton's lips close around the end of it. It tastes vaguely of oil, boiled dust, like Nick. Nick, the imitation of humanity, with a heart heavier than the clouds above Far Harbor.

 Nick watches, for a moment, appearing fascinated.

Walton draws away quickly, exhaling. The burn of it evacuates the mist hanging over his brain.

"Wasn't there a couch upstairs?" In the distance, he can just about see Arcadia, sat on top of the mountain like a watchful sage. "Long enough for me to nap on, right?"

"For your skinny bum? Yeah," Nick is close again, possibly without meaning to be. Rhythmic spirals of smoke blow just out of  Walton's eye line. "Hope they still have a paper intact up there. Need something to amuse me when you're on standby."

* * *

 

  _Power armour was crushing his limbs, the heat of the fusion core dwindling away at the base of his back. The screen was fuzzing, losing focus,_ **WARNING** _a scream in green letters._

 **"Get down, Walton!"** _It's his comrade's voice. Who's what's, he can't tell, they have all become a solid and terrible blur, all voices and faces fading into one thick, looming mushroom cloud._ **"GET DOWN, JESUS!'**

_He couldn't see, for all the fog in his face. The armour was too tightly strapped down to him; ill fitting, for they had run out of prescribed armours, stocks had fallen so low, and each man and woman had been shoved into whatever they had left. Walton had felt the sickly drop of dread in his stomach as the armour had closed him in like a tomb._

**"WALTON!"**

_Fire. Heat crushes into him as the helmet buckles against the impact of a mine; metal is in his face, shredding skin and muscle._

**_There were children's toys in the fire._ **

"NO..." His travelling blankets fall away. The fog has fallen away. Nick thrums in the corner, eyes closed, paper folded over his lap. Walton gulps, holds both hands to his breast, and slows his breath. "No," he whispers again. "No."

Fog or not, the stars are covered over by cloud that hang like ripped drapes, just dragging the darkness further into him. Walton has long preferred the backs of his eyelids to that ominous, unchanging sky. It was the first thing Nick had commented on, upon his release from the Vault all that time ago. That fresh, damned Commonwealth sky.

Walton lies back, still caught in the wake of his dream, tracing the scars on his face. The vault of the sky above tells him the world is still moving, that the days press on, further and further away from that encounter with steel and skin.

He'd been handsome, once. Dopey aqua eyes, a strong nose, a masculine, pert mouth. With his thick brown hair and the body afforded to him by training and vanity, he’d never been short of admirers. But his previous girlfriends had left after the accident. Georgia, who'd already been secretly pregnant, at that time, hadn't. She'd stayed. He figured a good thing was a good thing and he'd married her two weeks later, his face in bandages and no-one at the wedding, for all his friends were in the ground.

_Georgia..._

Walton fidgets, taunted by a more familiar claustrophobia.

Damn. He shoots a look back at Valentine. The detective, his foot resting on an old stool, sits silent, hopefully powering down low. Walton, grateful for the distraction, rolls on his side, wincing at the squeak of old springs, and unzips himself.

_Georgia._

Red hair, soft body. It’s working, slowly, working like the touch of Nick's cigarette. The world of the familiar, the sweet trap of memory. Georgia, breasts hung low over him, the bite of her thin lips, and the concentration in her hard nut brown eyes. Yes. This was good, he needed this.

 _"Georgia..."_ He murmurs, breath tingling his chapped lips. It is so strange, this memory, even the sensory cling of it, to be uttered in this wrecked house with ferals burning below. Who knew this was how he remembered his short term wife, his -

"You know, if you're going to do that type of thing, you can do it outside."

"Fuck!" Walton springs, wrenching up covers to conceal himself. Nick, arms crossed and cigarette lit, is dully observing from the corner. "I thought you were..."

"I don't sleep," The old bot's bemusement is not without empathy. If anything, his expression is downright strange. He might have heard the name, and wondered why it wasn’t Danse. But Danse isn’t safe in his familiarity. "I thought would you would remember that, seeing how long we've been travelling together."

Walton gnashes his teeth in frustration; the brave new world had come flooding back, thanks to the soothing guide of Nick's voice. Damn.

"I wouldn't expect you to understand.” Walton’s tone is short, irritated. He gulps, feeling a lump in his throat that refuses to budge. "How did you even know what I was doing...?”

"I remember the sensation clearly," As typical with Nick, there is a hint of hurt. Walton feels too humiliated to care. "And I know the signs. Don’t forget Nick Valentine was flesh and blood, with more than your healthy dose of testosterone.”

"Remembering is not the same as feeling, or being,” Walton can’t justify why they were having this conversation in the middle of the polluted remains of a national park, but there you go. His own words rebound in his head; he smells fire, he tastes Georgia, he feels the tear and split of his face. "And so you may know about it, but you don't understand it."

Nick is quiet, but his brows are drawn tight together.

"I was a prototype," He starts softly, "In more ways than one."

Walton blinks stupidly.

"I-I do not know what to do with that information, Nick."

"So," Nick's voice rises, just slightly above his usual timbre. But it’s not angry. It would be so much better if it was. "Next time you accuse me of being less human than I am, make sure you damn think about it.”

Walton opens his mouth, than closes it again. Nick just looks at him, the candlelight of his irises stuttering whenever he blinks. Walton throws himself on his side, pulling his covers up to the tips of his burning ears.

* * *

 

Nick didn't speak to him the next day. Neither did Walton. If the old bot wanted to be grumpy, Walton could match that toe by toe. He didn't have to apologize for anything.

However, the expression on Nick's face as he had witnessed, well, Walton's display - was a play on his mind. He'd been close, sure, when Nick had interrupted, hence the argument afterwards, an unfulfilled vent, but that means Nick had been watching him. For god knows how long?

Walton stares at Nick's back. He thought of the hard wired body beneath the rag of the detective's outfit, the plastic and metal wrought together in fixtures, powered by coolant, all held together by adhesive sealants. He didn't focus on these things, for why should he, for it was Nick inside; wiry, compassionate Detective Valentine, animating his puppet body with disturbing humanity. But Nick had said he could feel pain. But pleasure? How that was even accomplished? How did it -

A hard shell crunches beneath Walton's boot. He frowns. They're too far from Far Harbor's sands to be near the remains of mirelurks. Drawing his boot away, Walton sees the shattered remains of a Gen 1, leering up at the sky, teeth bared straight and eyes loose in its sockets.

A high, sickening chill washes through Walton's gut.

Up the steps leading to the door of Arcadia, there are more primitive synths, half destroyed, peppering the stairs to the caved in remains of Arcadia’s door.

“Nick!" Walton feels his voice crack.

'What is it?" Nick's rough retort fades on his lips. They stand, in the wake of Arcadia, or rather, the husk of it.

"Oh god," Walton has forgotten the awkwardness from before. The terror in Nick's face makes him think of his own reflection he had sighted in Danse's old quarters, when he had been assigned all that was his, and he felt the guilt, the ghost of the Paladin haunting his back, even if he had hidden him away safe, had sworn Maxson off him, had tried to protect him from the family that would have lynched him without a second thought.

But Danse had been safe.

Dima was not.

Nick was on his knees. Walton met him halfway, bracing his arms around Nick's hollow chest, feeling the whir of his generator heat and stir, erratic, coolant pounding through artificial limbs and heart.

"The Institute," Nick whispers, bitter. "Can't they leave anything? Can't we have _anything_?"

 

* * *

 

 

 

His Kingdom, gone.

Tubing is hoisted around Shaun's waist, cuffing his wrists high above head like a forgotten Messiah. The weight of his body, suspended, runs an undercurrent of agony through his muscles. He breathes, ragged, through his nostrils and wiggles in his bonds.

"I'm in pain," He says to the darkness. His lungs clench and wheeze; the cancer, racking up his blood, firing off his dying senses. His resolve breaks. "I'm in pain, damn you!"

The thing is watching. The dark is tinged with the lukewarm heat of its attentions. The air carries the cold that only metal can. There is nothing organic about this evil.

A base of metal forms a stool beneath his feet; Shaun slumps, body dropping.

"I heard you the first time," That voice. It's soothing, quiet, unaffected. Shaun imagines the echo of it in the hollow case of its chest, drifting around the subpar plumbing only afforded to their oldest models. "Please, try to relax. I can see you are sick."

"What have you done to my scientists?"

"That is no longer your concern, Shaun," The use of his name is too intimate. A shudder runs through his body, settling deep in his gut. The limited light shines off the glass tubing on the back of the creature's head as it turns to look at him. "They are dealt with."

'Dead?" He rasps.

Dima appears thoughtful. He leans back, supported by his wires that coil up to the ceiling. He brushes a thumb over his false mouth, tasting the concept.

"No," He replies. "Not dead."

'What have you done to them, then, you monster?"

"I can live with being a monster," Dima floats closer, their faces barely inches apart. "But can you?"

Whenever he is in pain, Shaun thinks of Kellogg. If he could ever put a face to this pain, to caner, it would be the grey sun starched face of Conrad, scar slit across murk black eyes, rugged and smirking, unshaven and musty with the filth of the world above ground.

Conrad, his beloved malignant growth, now rotting in an old army base, his head split and his brain harvested.

The shadows twist to form the merc's face, smiling just so in its subdued sadisms.

The decision to take him to bed was foolish, the option of leading him to heart, even as a younger man, had been disastrous.

Shaun struggled to love. He admits that to himself, even now, has only felt true passion in the pursuit of what they can do, or more triumphantly, what they shouldn’t do but what they did anyway. The rules were there to be tested, boundaries to be pushed, risks to be taken for mankind to reach greater and greater enlightenment.

But the enlightenment found in Conrad's grubby arms was a different sort. It scratched away at the primal ends of Shaun's mind; made him cruel, made him emotional. Kellogg knew this. It was a power trip, really, he had convinced himself, a duel of wits made physical. Conrad was a habit, but the emotional upheaval faced by abstinence from such an addiction had hurt, had hurt tremendously, had left him with his spoilt bed shirts and distractions that tore his eyes from the scientific wonders he crafted and instead to the filthy smile of his mercenary, loitering against doors, tearing jerky between his teeth and causing the assistants to grimace.

It had hurt in other ways, too. Hands rested too close together, the linger and heat of stolen glances, the small hiss of breath that gapped his teeth each time Kellogg had passed.

And then, he'd found out he was dying, and it seemed unfair for Kellogg to continue life, for he had lived too long, and was it spite or jealousy or the fear?

These compromised chemical reactions, these hot fervors, the eventual murder of one another. Was this not the closest thing to love he had ever experienced?

"I can hear your thoughts," Dima brushes a loose hair from Shaun’s cheek. The metal of his hand is like the cold press of the periscope, the chemotherapy needle snug sharp in his hand. "You regret what you have done?"

"No."

"The ends justify the means, I suppose." The synth at least has the decency to feign uncertainty, but Shaun knows it is all for show. He, after all, knows himself. "Your father is on his way here. I will not hide you from him."

"No-one can hide my father from me," Shaun has Walton's clear blue eyes, a face once handsome without the scarring. The dusky skin, the high nose, the square jaw, he assumes is from the mother. How odd it is, that humans can create hybrids, constructions formed from both faces, both bodies. He, Dima, is separate, his mind and soul crafted from the weight of his experiences and little else.   

"Why are you keeping me alive?" Shaun flexes his fingers. The factitious wrap of metal pushes against the pulses in his wrists. His bones crack painfully. He growls. "Haven't you done enough to me, now?"

"Who betrayed us?"

Dima has no breath, but air whistles through the vacuous frame, simulating the rush and churn of words formed in a diaphragm. The tickle of it chills the outer side of Shaun's ear.

Dima has slithered up behind him, hands hovering just over the length of his chest, a sharp arrow of a finger pressing, oh so lightly, into the gap between his ribcage.

"I don't know what you're talking about." Shaun says, blunt, tired, unreadable.

"Whom was it that revealed the location of Far Harbor?" Dima repeats, kindly, as if Shaun is senile, cannot comprehend the basic sentence, as if he is an invalid hidden away in the peaceful prison of a care home.

Shaun is wrung out. His tongue flounders usually in his mouth. He is so, so tired.

He will not beg, even as the face of the monster leers close, expression falsely vexed with concern.

"Do not fear," Dima says, patient. "I will find out eventually. I always do."

"I'm..." He has not had his medication, even if it could still be found, in this hollow space he resides in. Where is he, even? His pain addled mind reasons it could be the backs of the old labs, or even the space where they were digging; to expand, to improve the Institute. Oh god. "I'm in pain."

"You will not die," Dima begins to withdraw, darkness swallowing him. "I have seen the data identifying your illness.”

An excoriating pressure erupts in the back of his neck.

The needle is inserted with no tenderness, no medical care. Shaun does not scream; just wheezes, clamping his teeth over his lower lip, tasting blood. His body spasms. DIma wears Kellogg's face, for a moment, everywhere is Kellogg's face, and -

"This drip will keep you alive," Dima hovers above. "I will not prevent the meeting of a father looking for his son."

"That is not necessary!" Shaun shrieks. Composure is now a lost memory. Kellogg is everywhere, swarming like a cluster of cockroaches in the dark, crushing closer, closer. He's hallucinating; the pump of chemicals oozes into his blood.

"Do you not wish to see your father?" Dima rests his chin on his interlocked fingers. His face is dark. "That is oddly heartless. You seemed so keen on the _experiment_ , at first."

"How did...?"

Dima taps his head, smiling. Wires form a shimmering trail of silver from the back of his ruptured skull, a fiendish wedding train that fixes off into the blackness.

"My god, you're everywhere," It would be awe, not for the agony chugging in his skull, his body. He could vomit his guts, and still it wouldn't stop.

Dima smiles.


End file.
